A Swadesh list (/ˈswɑːdɛʃ/) is a compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics.
He started[1] with a list of 215 meanings (falsely introduced as a list of 225 meanings in the paper due to a spelling error[2]), which he reduced to 165 words for the Salish-Spokane-Kalispel language.
In 1952, he published a list of 215 meanings,[3] of which he suggested the removal of 16 for being unclear or not universal, with one added to arrive at 200 words.
In 1955,[4] he wrote, "The only solution appears to be a drastic weeding out of the list, in the realization that quality is at least as important as quantity.
Other versions of lexicostatistical test lists were published e.g. by Robert Lees (1953), John A. Rea (1958:145f), Dell Hymes (1960:6), E. Cross (1964 with 241 concepts), W. J. Samarin (1967:220f), D. Wilson (1969 with 57 meanings), Lionel Bender (1969), R. L. Oswald (1971), Winfred P. Lehmann (1984:35f), D. Ringe (1992, passim, different versions), Sergei Starostin (1984, passim, different versions), William S-Y.
[7] Frequently used and widely available on the internet, is the version by Isidore Dyen (1992, 200 meanings of 95 language variants).
The stability of terms on a Swadesh list under language change and the potential use of this fact for purposes of glottochronology (study of how languages develop and branch apart over time) have been analyzed by numerous authors, including Marisa Lohr 1999, 2000.
They found no statistically significant difference in the correlations in the families of the Old versus the New World.
The ranked Swadesh-100 list, with Swadesh numbers and relative stability, is as follows (Holman et al., Appendix.